"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

Monthly Archives: February 2016

So, it was early November, I was in Natchez, Mississippi, and it was time to start thinking about how I was getting home. Flying was not an option. I had made that promise to myself before I left, and I was standing by it. At this point, the thought of riding all the way back home to California seemed not too crazy. Clearly, I would want to stay south, given that we were rapidly marching our way to winter, but that would also mean that Texas stood in my way.

A forgotten desert gas station like this haunted my imagination.

Many people I met told me stories about some famed, fearless, formidable cyclist who finally met his or her match in Texas. Snow in the Pyrenees, armed guards in Korea, obstinate passport stampers in Brazil – none of these things could stop the steady pedaling of a touring cyclist the way the vast boredom of the dry Texas desert could. Broken, exhausted, driven to lunacy by the solitude, the touring cyclist in Texas puts in that phone call. I was obsessed with imagining the receiving end of that phone call. The phone rings brightly, perhaps playing a cheerful ringtone selected for the spunky traveler. Maybe Queen’s Bicycle Race. “Oh fun! I wonder how the adventure’s going!”

This is me

I'm an instructor at a Coding Bootcamp, but I made this website before I knew how to build my own from scratch and was instead riding my bicycle all day every day across the country looking for bone marrow donors. Maybe someday I'll rebuild it, but that would be a lot of work.

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"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University

"During the four month ride, 1500 children, teenagers and adults in the USA with blood cell cancer will receive a blood stem cell transplant from a volunteer donor. That is nearly 1 transplant for every two miles, and there is another patient during that same span, who can't find a matched donor. Support for the NMDP will make more donors available, and advance research needed to make transplants more available and safer for all." Dr. Edmund Waller, Director, Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Program, Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University